Andres Vargamäe (Andres's farm)
Volume 1
The young farmer Andres arrives at the poor, boggy farm of Vargamäe determined to master it by sheer will and work, believing that God rewards labour with land and justice. The farm, and his lifelong wrestle with it, is the ground of Tammsaare's meditation on toil, faith and the elusive truth the whole epic pursues.
Volume 1
inspired by Andres settles at the farm of Vargamäe, drawn from Tammsaare's own childhood home in Järva County; the farm is sited in that real central Estonian countryside.
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Pearu The bog and the ditches
Volume 1
Between the two farms lies the swamp and the water, and over its drainage Andres and his coarse, cunning neighbour Pearu wage a feud that lasts decades, in ditches, lawsuits and spite. Tammsaare turns the endless labour of the bog and the pettiness of the quarrel into an epic of the Estonian peasant's bondage to the land.
Volume 1
explicit Andres spends his life digging drainage ditches to reclaim the swampland; the bog is a real feature of the Estonian countryside, and the ditches are the arena of his long feud with his neighbour Pearu.
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Mari The parish church
Volume 1
At the parish church the farms bring their marriages, burials and disputes, and the weight of duty and belief that governs Andres's household is felt. Through his wife Mari and the succession of family sorrows, Tammsaare measures the human cost of a life given wholly to work and to a harsh idea of righteousness.
Volume 1
inferred The parish church, drawn from the Järva-Madise area near Vargamäe, is the centre of the community's religious and social life; sited among the real villages of the region.
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